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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defence of Languages

Discourses of Endangerment: Ideology and Interest in the Defence of Languages

Heller, Monica
Duchene, Alexandre
Milani, Tommaso M.

Hardcover

Series: Advances in Sociolinguistics

Linguistics

ISBN10: 0826487459
ISBN13: 9780826487452
Publisher: Continuum
Published: Mar 7 2007
Pages: 302
Weight: 1.33
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

Current academic discussions and public debates about language frequently focus on the importance of defending languages against various kinds of dangers. Many of these current debates attach great importance to linguistic diversity. The debates focus on defending institutionalized languages against multilingualism, or conversely defending minority languages against the incursion of larger ones, especially the spread of English. In both cases, languages are constructed as autonomous wholes, held to need defending against attack. This book challenges such a view of language, to argue that the discussions in question are not in fact about language itself. The internationally renowned contributors claim that we are witnessing ideological struggles which are taking place on the terrain of language.

Discourses of Endangerment addresses such questions as: * What does language represent in discussions of multilingualism? * Why is it constituted as an organic whole?* In whose interest does it lie to construct language in this way?* Who has an interest in taking various positions for or against official languages?* In what way is the linguistic order tied to the social order?

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